Once in a blue moon...

...We move to an apartment in Cascais, Portugal!

After several days of "voting," we're ready to reveal the results of our "International House Hunting." Drumroll please:

Numero um!  That is to say, we chose the 1st of the 3 apartments we visited, the little gem in "Historic Cascais."

Although we were intrigued by the idea of having a pool and/or tennis court at our disposal,  Estoril seemed a little too out of the way, so number 2 was out.  Number 3 was very alluring... modern and stylish with a warm feel.  It definitely fit us, but was also a bit far away from both work (an extra bus ride in the morning, most likely doubling our commute time) and all the fun exciting stuff in Cascais (see more on this below).  SO... we went with the place that was ready to move in with all of the amenities set up and the nicest landlord, Antonio.  He has already agreed to get us a better bed, newer couch, and even a flat screen TV (that was unprompted!)  The night we shook on it, he took us out for wine and beer and lovely conversation.  We scored. 

Last night was our first night staying at our romantic little "penthouse." Jyl cooked a sumptuous risotto and we drank delicious $4 wine as the blue moon rose on the horizon.  As twilight settled in, the enchanting sounds of Antonio Zambujo wafted in our window from the "Festa do Mar" (pronounced Fesh-tah) that runs for 10 days a few hundred yards from our perch.  An auspicious start, to be sure...

So it starts, friends!  Our 2nd bedroom is ready to go, and we are a short walk from a train station that runs to Lisbon, so we should be an easy destination.  Come enjoy all that Portugal has to offer, of which we have only begun to discover...

Once in a blue moon... we move to an apartment in Cascais, Portugal

Intern@tional House Hunters: Portugal Edition

Intern@tional House Hunters: Portugal Edition!

Our flights were great, but despite enjoying lavish comfort on the plane ride over the Atlantic we arrived with familiarly foggy jet-lagged brains.  The high school principal, school director, and transportation manager (Nate, Blannie, and Jose, respectively) were there to greet us.  Nate took us on a stroll along the Tagus River in Lisbon to pass the time as we waited for the rest of the new international hires, and was exceptionally patient as we gushed with a menagerie of pent up questions about the school year, the staff, and Portugal in general.  The rest of the crew (Maria, Joel, & Jen) eventually arrived from the far-flung corners of the world and then we headed West along the coast, out of Lisbon and on towards Cascais (our future home) and Linho (the school site).

At the school we were taken on a tour and then fed an overwhelming amount of very useful facts that were reasonably difficult to keep from leaking out of brains and into puddles on the linoleum.  Of the many tasks they set before us, Mission #1 was finding a place to live.  In 4 days.  Better yet, 3, so that we have time to bring the Portuguese rental contract to our accommodating office manager.  Oh, and by the way, even though you asked for 2 bedroom places we set you up to look at 1 bedroom places... so you'll probably need to contact the agents and reschedule.  But you can't do that yet because you have your first meeting in an hour, and you have to check in to the hotel first.  Deep breath...

Although it all seemed pretty overwhelming at first, it fell into place fairly quickly, especially with the help of many warm and helpful Portuguese people that we met along the way.  As a result, we have a place all set up to go, just 3 days after arriving.  Check out the little video I made to document the journey, and vote on which one YOU think we should have chosen! 

It (finally) begins...

Six months ago we pulled the trigger.  Today, we're actually on our way.  Just 2 flights and an expansive layover stand in the way of our dazed arrival in Lisboa.  

In honor of this momentous occasion, we    decided to splurge, and kick it off right... we're flying first class!  We rationalized the (surprisingly reasonable) expense through saved baggage fees, complimentary lounge access for our 8-hour Newark layover, and the fact that it might allow us to actually sleep for what will seemingly be a very long arrival day.  More realistically it just seemed like one of the only times we'd be able to afford it (especially since our base tickets were paid for by the school). Luxury awaits!  So we've got that goin' for us.

Thirty hours from now we will have crossed an ocean, taken a tour of our new school, opened a bank account, and gone to see apartments that could house us for the next 2 years.  It's going to be an epic couple of days...

A Dry Run (Europe Part 1)

Spanish, French, German, Dutch, and a dozen more languages I can't discern buzz around us as we stumble in a jet-lagged haze through Amsterdam's busy airport.  I let the overwhelming stimuli of myriad cultures comfortably co-existing wash over me.   I can't even begin to process the tapestry that's spinning around my head on 25 measly minutes of shut-eye (not sleeping, mind you; literally, I shut my eyes, but could find no way to get the rest I knew I'd need come morning).  We hop on a quick flight to Basel, Switzerland and stumble out the doors only to realize that our passports have NOT yet been stamped for entry.  We ask an officer what to do now that we had passed through customs and he said that there was nothing to be done.  Are we fugitives?  Have we illegally entered the European continent on the first swipe?  Silly Americans...

And so began our "dry run" exploration of Europe... Nearly 3 weeks to start to adapt to the fact that "you know nothing, Jon Snow."  A chance to experience different languages... new foods... strange signs... and funny looking money.  The heart of the European mainland yielded all of these things, but was certainly cushioned by the fact that nearly everywhere we went (Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and even France) people were clearly more ready to deal with me than I was with them.  I felt humbled at the ease with which people switched from language to language, whereas I found myself nonsensically falling back on Spanish to communicate (as of now it's the only "other" language I am used to speaking, so when someone asked me something in Swiss or German, I found myself automatically responding with a "si, gracias" more than once).  This might go over better in Portugal.  Or maybe not. 

It was a beautiful and unexpectedly busy trip, chock-full of cathedrals, castles, and the vestiges of time past (buildings considered "ancient" in America would in many cases seem to be considered "new" in Europe... or not considered at all).  At times I felt like I was navigating these new cultures with all the grace of an elephant trying to tiptoe through a room of bubble-wrap.  But I guess that's my future, so I better get used to it.  Exactly 2 weeks from today, by this time we should have landed in Portugal, toured our school, opened a bank account, and be right in the middle of touring furnished apartments, where we'll spend the next 2 years of our lives.  Deep breath.  The dry run of Europe was great, but when I face up to the reality that it is my future, the elephant in me is ready to storm the circus crowd, knock down the supports, and hide in the collapsing tent until it all blows over.  I'm overwhelmed... but I suppose that's the natural feel of things.  All I can do is make the most of the time with my family, friends, and familiar life... and remind myself that eventually, Portugal will be familiar, too. 

Dreaming California

The first time I ventured on my own into Oakland, California, I was given a ticket and told that I should leave.

Granted, the ticket was for blowing through a stop sign in a nervous frenzy as I unwittingly rolled through a rougher part of town while looking for reasonably-priced housing.  I imagine the police officer intended well; he made a judgement call and told me that "this place is too dangerous for you" when he saw the Wisconsin plates, the Subaru Legacy station wagon full of soft-hearted bumper stickers, and the look of panic in my eyes as I realized that a Craigslist search for cheaper apartments had not fully disclosed the trade-offs inherent in finding sub-$800/ month rentals in one of the most crime-ridden (yet expensive) cities in California.  Heck, at that point I was almost relieved to get pulled over so that I could ask the man-in-blue for directions, as my primary navigational challenges for the previous year and a half involved nature trails and open water, and West Oakland was a whole different beast.

My relief and gratitude for having survived an adventure into a wilder side of civilization for a mere $84 fee slowly subsided and morphed into good old mid-western resentment.  Who was he to decide that I couldn't cut it?  Didn't he know what it means to come from the Badger State?  We're a people that are at least as stubborn as we are good-natured.  We're explorers and ambassadors...  innovators and industrialists... underdogs and over-achievers.  We are a people that survive at least 4 (but as many as 10) months of annual weather that legitimately tries to kill us.  And although we are on the whole an unassuming and warm people, we can be fierce when cornered (or when someone tries to take our cheese and beer).  I found an apartment and moved in with the few possessions that littered my unladen station wagon several weeks later.


So began my elementary education into urban living.  I got a taste for some of the negatives that inevitably come when you jam a lot of people into one area, and too many of them have too few resources: 2 cars stolen, 1 additional car break-in, 1 homicide in the park next to my home, and too many helicopter wake-ups for drug busts and police raids.  My first few years of this almost drove me away too soon.  I felt alien, out of place, and far too mid-western to belong in a place so rich in high-volume attitude.  But I didn't leave, and my hors d'oeuvres sampling of urban blight was overwhelmed by a big heaping meal of positive urban synergy.  Jamming a lot of people into one area can give birth to the easy flow of ideas, wild innovative growth, and unrelenting exposure to new ways of being.  The people that gravitate to Oakland are incredibly creative, open, and in touch with the natural cycles of the Earth, and they helped me learn more about the natural world than I could have imagined learning in an urban area.  No matter how much concrete we put between ourselves and the dirt that lies under each city, the geophagic draw is there, and humans (translating to "of the dirt or earth") in the Bay Area find a way to honor that connection. 

Last week, nearly 7 years after starting this learning journey,  I rolled out of "The Town," heading back to Wisconsin with a 26-foot moving truck jam-packed with possessions, a beautiful blue-eyed life partner sitting next to me, pockets full of memories, and a heart heavy with the mixed emotions of leaving.  The friends that saw us off and filled our days and months and years in California are the real deal.  They're the bear-hugging, plant-tending, beer-brewing, outdoor-loving, game-playing, campfire-singing, mountain-hiking, wine-tasting, poker-playing, slow-food-making, adventure-having best, and why would anyone leave that?  It sit heavy on my chest and stomach and shoulders, and it planted the seed of a feeling that grew as I went.  

I felt it driving over the granite peaks of the Sierras, through the salt flats of Utah, up and around the majestic Rockies, and over the rolling big-sky plains.  I felt it as the plains changed to big burr oaks savannahs and the air filled with the smell of soil and moisture, and the sun filtered through mountainous clouds from the west where my friends remained.  I feel it today, sitting outside my parents home in lake country, as a deer wanders through the yard before noticing the gig is up and bounding off with a huff.

The feeling is thankful (Obrigado, amgios).  The feeling is bittersweet.  The feeling is a nostalgic dream of California, that I keep replaying in bits and pieces... as with my first solo trip to Oakland.  The feeling is the realization that although my roots started to form in this midwestern soil, I grew UP with you in the West.


Thank you, my California compadres.  I hope we can dream together again down the road or across the ocean, or wherever we find ourselves dreaming next. 

Who Moves to Portugal?

I guess the answer is... we do! 

Jyl and I are wrapping up our current teaching year, selling off our stuff, and are starting to say our "see-you-laters" to our California crew.  It's all feeling pretty surreal at this point; hard to allow the reality that we'll be moving from west coast to another, some 5,600ish miles away.  That is of course, if we can get our paperwork together.

It's been a bit of a mess so far.  We hope to receive word from the FBI soon informing us that we are not, in fact, criminals, so that we can get a work visa application in to the Portugese Consulate in San Francisco.  Once that's all taken care of, it'll be the waiting game again, as our forms make a trans-atlantic trip to (hopefully) gain us stamps for our passports.  Because the FBI processing has taken longer than we expected, and because we'll be heading to Europe for recreational travel (oh, what a life we lead) from mid- to late-July, we may have to get the aforementioned stamps in the 2 week window between flying back from Europe and to Portugal on August 15th.  If we have to fly back to San Francisco for the stamping, it could be quite the expensive lesson in paperwork navigation... but it'll never be bad to come back to the Bay. 

Anywho.  First things first.  Time to enjoy our last weeks of California dreamin...